Galleria Massimodeluca is delight to present Entrare nell’opera, the first show of the season that brings together the works of Paola Angelini, Stefano Cozzi, Marie Denis, Dominique Figarella, Graziano Folata and Stefano Moras that focus on closeness between artwork and observer. The project is inspired by the action Giovanni Anselmo made at the beginning of Seventies.

The show, curated by Daniele Capra and based on an idea by Marina Bastianello, artistic director of the Massimodeluca, comes from the desire to bring together artists whose research focuses on getting close both emotionally and conceptually to the observer, aware that artistic practice is a continuous and inexhaustible inquisition of spectator’s gaze.

The exhibition - featuring a dozen works ranging from painting to video, photography, sculpture and installation - originates from the work of Giovanni Anselmo Entrare nell’opera, a particularly intense examination of the visual relationship with the spectator and the dynamics of psychic involvement in the artwork.

In 1971 Anselmo mounted a camera on a tripod, pointed the lens at a meadow in front of him and set it on delayed shutter release. Then he pressed the button and started running with his back to the camera. The resulting photo portrays the artist from the back, as he is moving. The title chosen for the work is particularly relevant: Entrare nell’opera (“Entering the artwork”), that is an open and polysemous title whose possible interpretations overlap and merge. First we have Anselmo who physically entered the nature as he runs. At the same time he personally entered the artwork he created, since the photo he took was actually a self-portrait, even though escaping with his back to the camera. But there is a third layer of meaning which the title alludes to and which is strictly for the observer: the photographic document grants the spectator the same level of freedom as the artist, allowing him to enter the work in two ways (namely in the nature and in the Anselmo’s work). Thus the artist gives the spectator a central role, not unlike his own, exchanging points of view between the observing active subject and the observed object.

The show Entrare nell’opera examines how striving for psychological, perceptive and spatial involvement is one of the most important strategies of art, and not only today (i.e. many Flemish artists since the beginning of the fifteenth century used mirrors or reflections of the light to represent small snippets of the world which were not directly in front of the artist but behind him). The direct identification with the author and the technical artifice that defines a space within which the spectator can move, in immersive and contemplative abandonment, are similar to first person narrative, a technique which allows the reader to identify with the protagonist and feel emotionally close to him.

A catalogue with pictures of the show and text of the curator will be published at the end of the exhibition.

The artists

The pictorial practice of Paola Angelini (San Benedetto del Tronto, 1983) is characterised by a surprising figurative representation that is indefinite and anti-perspective, that originates from an approach that is both meditative and analytical. In the intense strokes and the use of colours her paintings inherit the iconographic features and strength of the great masters of the past.

The research of Stefano Cozzi (Milan, 1989) is closely linked to the enigmatic aspects of the unconscious and symbolic representation, which the artist brings to life through sculpture, video and performance. The nature, the randomness of events, the passing of time and death are the themes and obsessions analysed by Cozzi with a reflective and existentialist approach.

The work of Marie Denis (Bourg-Saint-Andéol, 1972) explores the wonders of nature in two- and three-dimensional forms and the possibilities that vegetable material offers to sculpture. Branches, trees, leaves, feathers thus become fundamental parts of complex architectures, in which the unpredictable ever-changing state of the flora tidy up thanks to a rational combinatorial geometry.

The works of Dominique Figarella (Chambéry, 1966) are based on the conceptual visual practice of overlapping and masking images, which the artist portrays in a rigorous and flat colour painting. The subject thus becomes visible by negative form, in a recursive process characterised by the use of photographs that split up the observer’s view.

Photography and sculpture are the favoured media of Graziano Folata (Rho, 1982) whose work frequently explores nature and its elements. His research emerges from his need to relate psychologically with the spectator, questioning him using deliberately open compositions which stimulate a dialogue. The observer is therefore forced to take a stance, to express his opinions.

The work of Stefano Moras (Pordenone, 1985) is the result of his investigation of the world, where pictorial analysis and the randomness of a meeting are central issues. His artistic practice is mainly based on deliberately not iconic processual painting, which is strengthened by the presence of leftover elements such as things found in nature, discarded and forgotten objects.